achromatopsia // natsyuri

the no caps is for the aesthetic

          my whole life is engulfed in shades of gray. black, white, and gray are the only colors i've ever known. kinda like an old tv set. i just happened to be that one in 30,000. i'm really lucky, though. most other people can't see clearly in light or have lazy eye or something like that. 

          knowing my condition, it's pretty obvious why i like to confide in books. you don't need color to understand the stories told within the bound pages of a good book. i was pleasantly surprised to find out that this year there was a literature club at my school. it was an after school club, so it would eat up my time doing what i usually did. that consisted of laying in the grass of a secluded area at my school and staring up at the sky, fantasizing about all the rich shades of color that could be up that i can't see.

          when i got to the club, i was surprised by how unpopulated it was. there was monika, the club's founder and president. she was the model student; top of her classes, adored by everyone. sayori was the vice president. she seemed like she joined because she needed an extracurricular, and not because she actually liked literature. there was one more girl. her name was natsuki. she was reading manga on the floor. she seemed lonely. 

          i made the executive decision to go ahead and sit next to her and introduce myself. she introduced herself to me, because common courtesy. she seemed annoyed, so i didn't force anymore conversation with her. i simply pulled out my own book and began reading on the bookmarked page. 

          monika dismissed the club before students had to leave campus, so i decided to find my favorite patch of grass, because i wasn't going to give up my tradition so easily. my mind went to the normal topics that it usually did. thinking about color (or lack thereof). surprisingly, someone lied down next to me. maybe not next to me. she was upside down, so our heads were close but our bodies were facing different directions. it was natsuki.

          "what's your favorite color?" she asked nonchalantly. "i can't see color.." i trailed but didn't try to continue. "that's sad. for me, i see everything in color. numbers, letters, songs, sometimes feelings. anything, really," natsuki rambled on.

"can you explain colors to me?"

"yeah, totally!" natsuki exclaimed confidently. "just, which ones?"

"people say my hair is purple. what's purple like?"

          natsuki pondered about it for a while. "hmm.. purple... 14 is a pretty purple-y number. people say purple is a royal color, but i don't really see it. maybe purple is a smart color. you seem pretty smart." she used the word purple far too many times for it to mean anything anymore. semantic satiation. she started rambling again. i had to cut her off.

          "what about your favorite color?" i asked her. she probably thought for less than two seconds before reciting a 20 page thesis on the color pink. "pink! it's a color superior to all other colors! like love. the fluttery feeling in your stomach." she began rambling on for the third time in this conversation. she was more enthusiastic this time, like pink was her life source.

          i was so happy to find out that this was going to be a daily thing. after the club would wrap up, natsuki and i would find a new patch of grass to lie in and just talk. most of the time it would be about colors, but sometimes we'd just talk about how our day has been. when we talked about our day, natsuki was apprehensive and less enthusiastic, almost like she was hiding something. i never asked her about it, because i didn't want to offend her, or something. 

          natsuki and i were getting pretty close. it was a chilly day in november when she stopped coming with me to enthuse about colors. later in the week, she stopped coming to the club completely. and by the next week, she stopped coming to school altogether. i was overridden with despair. it felt like my whole world went back to black and white when color was just beginning to seep in. 

          sayori noticed how gloomy i was. she followed me to the grass and we talked. she was gloomy too. just a sad pair of girls, talking in the grass. i guess she wanted me to stop being gloomy. she wasn't colorful like natsuki. she was just black and white like everything else. she blended into the background. sayori gave up when she realized i wasn't getting better.

          monika followed me in the following weeks after sayori. monika was less gloomy than her, but not as colorful as natsuki. i could empathize with her the least. we didn't have anything in common besides a love for books. she wasn't that interesting, despite all the hype around how smart and pretty she was. 

          natsuki came back around that time. she wasn't as enthusiastic about anything anymore. that made me sad. "do you wanna talk about it?" i asked her. 

         "it feels like my whole world is falling apart. everything's black and white, just like you see. every time i close my eyes i hope the color will come back in but it doesn't. black and white, white and black. i miss pink and purple and blue and red and all those other colors!" she started crying. i hugged her. we stayed like that for a while. 

          "it doesn't mean a lot right now, but i can see constellations really easily. the contrast is good for my eyes, and it's fun to point out the shapes. the north star is pretty easy to find, so it's nice to know you're going in the right direction." i vaguely pointed to the sky. "right there should be the big dipper, which is connected to ursa major," 

          in my weak attempt to cheer her up, she stopped crying. in that moment, i realized that this is my world. talking about color and not-color aimlessly and without really any meaning. i could easily live like this forever. maybe a little less crying. 

~

i wrote this in an hour at 1 am don't scream at me

the sentences are choppy?? yeah i kno that was intentional

~midnight